Elven Chronicles
Well first of all I must admit something: I’m a RPG fan. Even more than that, I’m a Final Fantasy fan. And if you’re wondering what this has to do with anything and haven’t guessed from the pictures already, read on…
Elven Chronicles is a mobile role playing game, where you are put in the shoes of a knight called Rogan who has lost his memory and is on a quest to find out who he was. You travel alongside an elf called Jada who is a spellcaster, master of all of the worlds elements: fire, ice, lightning, earth, holy and dark. The quest takes you through forests, cities, icy mountains, caves and dungeons in search of your forgotten past, battling a variety of monsters.
The level up system is automated, each time you achieve a new level spells are automatically given and attributes are raised. Thus the only customization you have as far as how to play your characters is with what items you choose to equip them, for instance weapons can have added elemental damage of a certain type which may help against monsters weak to that element.
The magic system is based on elemental, holy and dark attack types, with each monster having a weakness to one element and a strength against it’s opposing one. Unfortunately if you attack the monster with the element it is strong against you will heal it instead of damaging it. The game designers were very uninspired when it came to naming the spells, instead of fireball or something they just use “Earth 1″ or “Fire 1″, the number indicating the level of the spell obviously. At least there is no shortage of spells.
The combat system is specific to old Super Nintendo RPG series and of course Final Fantasy which I mentioned earlier. Combat takes place in turns, where each character can choose one of four actions: attack, use magic, use item or retreat. Of course monsters won’t ever retreat, but they will use spells against you, some of them even having the ability to cast the extremely annoying “Heal” spell on themselves, making battles last two or three times longer then they should. However this can be overcome by appropriate timing, since monsters only heal themselves when under a certain amount of health so the key is to kill them with your most powerful spells before the get a chance.
The music is really good as is the sound in general, which does a lot to add to the atmosphere of the game, sometimes even more so than the NPCs or the relatively vague dialogue. On the map you move your party on, enemy monsters all appear as whirlwinds, color coded by battle difficulty (eg. green – very easy, blue – medium and so on), which is a really bad choice if you ask me.
Unfortunately the game is extremely long, with many battles which become repetitive, there are loading times everytime you enter a battle, leave a battle, enter an area, open the menu or the inventory which make the game seem even longer. Unless you like playing for tens of minutes in the same area this game will put your patience to the test. All in all a good game though, with a lot to offer especially if you want to dedicate it a lot of time.
